Happy Chinese New Year
Next next Sunday, February 14, 2010, will be the Chinese New Year. The year of Ox ends and the year of Tiger begins.
This message comes to you early because I'm leaving for China in a few of hours. I will be visiting family in Tianjin for a couple of weeks.
I'll keep a tradition that I started two years ago going by offering a fresh English translation of a piece of ancient Chinese classics. This year's passage comes from the I Ching, which I have started studying last year (I've even quoted it several times.)
The content of the I Ching was developed over a period of over 2000 years, starting from 伏羲 (Fu Xi, mid 2800s BC) drawing the eight gua (trigrams), followed by 周文王 (King Wen of Zhou, 1099–1050 BC) arranging the 64 gua (hexagrams) and writing the decisions for each, and 周公 (Duke of Zhou, son of King Wen) writing the 387 decisions for each yao (line) of each gua, and culminating in 孔子 (Confucius, 551–479 BC) writing commentaries for all of the above. It's been another 2500 years since its completion.
I Ching (Qian, 15:1)
䷎
(King Wen's Decision)
Modesty: Progressing smoothly. The noble man attains his end.
(Confucius's commentary on the text)
Modesty, progressing smoothly,
the Tao of heaven aids down and shines bright,
the Tao of earth is humble and moves up.
The Tao of heaven decreases the full and benefits the modest,
the Tao of earth changes the full and flows the modest,
ghosts and spirits harm the full and bless the modest,
the Tao of man hates the full and loves the modest.
Modesty is noble and glorious, humble and cannot be exceeded, the end of the noble man.
(Confucius's commentary on the image)
The earth has mountains, modesty; The noble man hence decrease the many and increase the few, weigh things and gives evenly.